t his coat tails whisked up behind
him.

Up in the heather the lapwing flew about flapping her wings. The spring
had overtaken her so suddenly that she had not had time to find a proper
place for her nest. She had laid her eggs right in the middle of a
flat-topped mound. It was all wrong, she knew that quite well; but it
could not be helped now.

The lark laughed at it all; but the sparrows were all in a hurry-scurry.
They were not nearly ready. Some had not even a nest; others had laid
an egg or two; but the majority had sat on the cow-house roof, week out,
week in, chattering about the almanac.

Now they were in such a fidget they did not know where to begin. They
held a meeting in a great rose-bush, beside the Pastor's garden-fence,
all cackling and screaming together. The cock-sparrows ruffled
themselves up, so that all their feathers stood straight on end; and
then they perked their tails up slanting in the air, so that they looked
like little gray balls with a pin stuck in them. So they trundled down
the branches and ricochetted away over the meadow.

All of a sudden, two dashed against each other. The rest rushed up,
and all the little balls wound themselves into one big one. It rolled
forward from under the bush, rose with a great hubbub a little way into
the air, then fell in one mass to the earth and went to pieces. And
then, without uttering a sound, each of the little balls suddenly went
his way, and a moment afterwards there was not a sparrow to be seen
about the whole Parsonage.

Little Ansgarius had watched the battle of the sparrows with lively
interest. For, in his eyes, it was a great engagement, with charges and
cavalry skirmishes. He was reading _Universal History_ and the _History
of Norway_ with his father, and therefore everything that happened about
the house assumed a martial aspect in one way or another. When the cows
came home in the evening, they ware great columns of infantry advancing;
the hens were the volunteer forces, and the cock was Burgomaster Nansen.

Ansgarius was a clever boy, who had all his dates at his fingers' ends;
but he had no idea of the meaning of time. Accordingly, he jumbled
together Napoleon and Eric Blood-Axe and Tiberius; and on the ships
which he saw sailing by in the offing he imagined Tordenskiold doing
battle, now with Vikings, and now with the Spanish Armada.

In a secret den behind the summer-house he kept a red broom-stick, which
was called Bucephalus.